Archives

Our archives are a repository of original thinking that chronicles two decades of research, analysis, and policy innovation. This collection brings together articles written by SFG’s founders and research analysts between 2005 and 2025, preserving the ideas, and insights that shaped our intellectual journey. These writings reflect the evolution of our thinking as we engaged with some of the world’s most pressing challenges and opportunities.

The archive offers a rich body of material for researchers, policymakers, students, journalists, and anyone interested in understanding complex global issues through a long-term strategic lens. The articles explore a wide spectrum of subjects, including peace and conflict, water diplomacy, international relations, technology, environmental sustainability, governance, security, and the changing dynamics of regional and global cooperation. They also place regional developments within broader international and geopolitical contexts.

Many of these articles anticipated trends and policy challenges that later became central to international discourse. Others document the development of concepts and frameworks that informed SFG’s subsequent research, dialogues, and publications. Together, they provide not only historical context but also enduring perspectives that continue to resonate in a rapidly changing world.

Beyond serving as a research resource, this archive offers a window into the intellectual history of SFG. It traces how our ideas evolved over time, how new policy concepts emerged through sustained inquiry, and how our engagement expanded from regional concerns to global challenges. Readers can follow the progression of our work across changing geopolitical landscapes and appreciate our evidence-based approaches to peace, security, and international cooperation.

Whether you are revisiting landmark analyses, exploring the origins of key policy ideas, or discovering our work for the first time, we hope these archives provide valuable insights, stimulate informed debate, and inspire fresh thinking about the future.

Water Security: Old Problems, New Solutions

November 18, 2011
By Sowmya Suryanarayanan

In 2006, the Barefoot College set up a community-level solar-powered desalination plant in partnership with a small voluntary organization called Manthan in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. This small-scale plant now meets the drinking water requirements of more than 1,000 men, women and children from Kotri, as well as the surrounding villages. A family is charged INR 40 per month for use of 1200 litres of water. This is just one of the many emerging small-scale water desalination initiatives that have been taken to meet the needs of vulnerable people with little or no access to clean water in India.

Two Sides of a Prism

November 18, 2011

Presently, US-Pakistan relations are at an extremely crucial juncture. There are conflicting views amongst analysts about whether or not Pakistan has been pushed into a corner by the US over the issue of support to terrorists. There are theories about whether the Pakistan-US alliance would last till the end of the war in Afghanistan and questions about what Pakistan would ask for in return for getting Taliban to the negotiating table.

Europe and the World

November 18, 2011
By Sundeep Waslekar

They say European economies are failing Greece, Italy, may be Spain. They are bound to fail when their growth rates plunge. It is not like rising economies where official accounts are hardly relevant. What is good for future of the world a transparent failing economy or a rising black economy?

In Humility, Admiring the Impossible

September 18, 2011
By Sundeep Waslekar

I have rarely experienced a greater irony in my life. Hours after I spent touching moments in Einstein's apartment at Gerechtigkeitsgasse 32 in old Bern, where he had written all his famous works of 1905, I heard the announcement from another part of Switzerland. CERN said that its Large Hadron Collider had enabled neutrinos to travel faster than light, thus proving Einstein wrong.....

Syria: An Uncertain Future

September 18, 2011
By Shivangi Muttoo

For the past five months, Syria has been thrown into the midst of so much chaos and social unrest that uncertainty has become the new norm in the country. The end to the standoff between President Bashar al-Assad and the protestors does not seem to be in sight. The diplomatic pressure, from the US and countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, on Syria to defuse the crisis has not yielded meaningful results. While President Assad is determined and taking significant measures to retain power, the protestors are displaying courage in their face-off with the tanks and army and are likely to continue their struggle until reforms are ushered in and a new regime is elected. Since both sides are stuck to their entrenched positions, Syria's future will be shaped by uncertainty, which will have negative socio-economic implications for the country.

India’s Demographic Dividend

September 18, 2011
By Anumita Raj

India is presently in the early part of its demographic dividend. However, unless lessons are learnt from other parts of the world, and adequate measures are taken both at the ground and policy levels, it is possible that India will be unable to reap its demographic dividend, and may in fact jeopardize its future as a result of inadequate action.